What's Worth More on the Open Market - Your Records or Your Audio Gear

Years, actually decades, ago J Gordon Holt (if you don't know who he was then never mind) commented if one's record collection was worth more than their components then they were a music lover; if the components were worth more then they were an audiophile.

Lew, that your friend could sell 2,000 LPs for $20K is astounding.  Could that have been a single buyer?

Shocked at that ratio which equates to $10 an album. Must have been a huge amount of spectacular rare mint numbers.

Even though I know I have some tasty pressings I still just think in terms of $1 per album if they were sold as a wholesale lot ( if I am lucky!). Anything else might net more but possibly a disproportionate amount of time and effort to sell.

Gear is usually easier to value at any given time although selling is becoming harder and harder as the market shrinks and disposable income becomes, well less disposable.

I’ve got about 4k albums and my collection would hit about $10 per, as an average. As a minimum, even. ie, about 50 records in the mix that street price out at ~$200-700.

I know someone who has about +10k albums and they would fetch about $20-30 per, minimum. If not notably higher. All blues-jazz originals, for the most part. I mean, I could go to his house, pull a record randomly, blindfolded, and be looking at a street price of $25-50, for just about any one of them. He’s got many a $500 record, just due to rarity alone.

the fact that these records are held is part of their valuation in current times. If the market becomes flooded with the desirable albums, then their values plummet dramatically. Which is what happens when the senior collectors start to really get the boot from the planet.

They say that there is a huge high priced real estate glut coming in the US, as the baby boomers all sell off, and move to retirement homes. Approximately 21 million high value homes, they say. (just some light reading, never really did more than skim the article)

eBay sales don’t get as much as people think. And eBay is a fair representation of the value of records in general. Also, a lot of records you see for hundreds of dollars on eBay are there because they have not (rpt not) sold.